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182 ownership in words and pics



So after 6 months of ownership, 17,000 miles travelled and a gradual process of making the car how I wanted it I thought it would be nice to put together a little diary/project thing as I have read other peoples with great interest before!

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So here he is as I picked him up on the 2nd Oct 2008; an 04 registered BG 182 with both cup packs and a full Renault service history just run in with 35,000 miles on the clock.

Initially I viewed the car with the intention of being a bit of a test pilot :eek: as it was a walking distance from work, and I was playng with the idea to potentially get one later in the year. However as these things always go I test drove it on some cracking local roads and that evening I had it bought and on my drive. I was blown away by the pin sharp handling, power and the perfect mix between balls out madness, occasional practicality and the cars unassuming presence.

The first month of owning the car was completely problem free and my initial worries of build quality, reliability and electrical problems were removed, so I got on with enjoying it and getting used to a hugely fast car in my eyes. Apart from the daily commuting I found myself going for late night/early morning blasts, sometimes 50 mile round trips just for the hell of it. That gut wrenching feeling of filling the old polo with poverty spec fuel was gone and in its place a willing Vpower addiction had taken hold.

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A 1500 mile trip through France saw the miles piling on and I was growing ever more fond of my little hot hatch as I stretched its legs across europe.

When I first picked up the car it had already had some bits and pieces done, including a remap, stainless steel catback and a set of new PE2s, so there were some savings in place from the word go. However ahead loomed the cambelt & aux belt service so I had this done early by those legends Mike & Dave at Rentech portsmouth for a very keen price!

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After working with JamesStone on his track car thread link, watching his road car project develop & attending meets etc I began to catch the “modding” (hate that expression) bug. I had always consciously avoided this with my previous cars as I have never found one that deserved my hard earnt cash improving it, purely as it can become a money pit overnight with very little gains in the morning!

However I found the clio more than deserving, and decided due to plummeting car prices I would stick with him for the long run, possibly becoming an all out track toy in the distant future.... A direction for the car was formed: too make it faster, sharper, harder without loosing refinement and comfort, so with James’ guidance & never ending patience the process began. At this stage I was lucky to be able to experience James’ 172 that had had all the work done to it before with a proven RR figure. I found it extremely sharp and interactive, even raw at times. The changes made throughout his car made my car feel decidedly soft & mellow in comparison and I wanted to capture a bit of the character distilled in his 172 and implant it into my 182.

The first early steps where to sort the breathability of the engine at both ends. Out went the viper, in went the standard box/ITG and had a silenced decat made up for the catback system for which I saw I reasonable improvement in performance and a nice sound without being too loud.

Unfortunately I also caught/was distracted by the cleaning bug, however PCing was not something I was willing to try on my own car, so I got an excellent price from Driven’shine in surrey for the full works Link for DW project

before:
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after:
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The clio had probably been washed by an army of poles ever since it left the factory as the paint work was in a terrible nick, however the price was well worth the results and bought the paint work up wonderfully, ready for proper washing techniques.

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So now I found myself with a totally mint 182, both mechanically & appearance speaking. more Staines meets came and went and in January 2009 I decided to start making the real upgrades I had always intended too.

The first change, and one of the best ones to date were the seats. I toyed with the idea of getting Trophy recaros, but simply could not swallow the silly asking price! I also considered fixed buckets but decided they were a little hardcore for me and removed what shades of occasional practicality I had with the rear seats being accessible. After much umming and ahhing a fellow member, now an ex-clio owner but a legend non the less made it know to me that you can pick up Recaros much cheaper in other forums, so I bided my time until I pair of mint evo8 MR Recaros came up for sale for a very good price so I snapped them up. My seats thread

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With a bit of tinkering I got them in the car and was overt the moon with the results, they made a massive difference to the feel of the car whilst retaining the element of practicality I would have lost with fixed buckets.

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Another month flew by in which the car was treated to a 6,000 mile oil change and a wheels off clean up, my spotless license also took a kick in the nads with a SP40 one day when I was late for work, I put it down to being inevitable with the miles I do ;)

February saw the camberly rolling road meet and a sense of nervousness as my car was put on the rollers, as the RR in surrey is renowned for blunt accuracy as they do not aim to please with there own product range.

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With so many local CS members attending and with my inherent competitiveness it was a big moment for the car and he did well at 180.2 bhp ATF calculated (with the respectable ATW dyno graph shown), a good result in my books as there were some distinctly underpowered cars already causing some head scratching that day with various VVT problems.

Although obtaining a good peak power the dyno graphs were showing a sharp drop in output quite early in the rev range, causing my optimum shift point to be surprisingly low in the 5.5k region. After checking the map and the base software version on the car Mr Stone updated both the software & the map with the newest fastchip 98Ron map, and boy what a difference, the map applied previously was around a year and half old and made beyond 6k a long old slog; something that only became apparent with the new map that took the power right up to the limiter. For a number of weeks after that I would find myself hitting the limiter every so often without being ready for it as I was totally unused to it surging all the way to the line!

February flew by and I found myself cursing my dirty black car, never clean for more than a day, but when cleaned it was all worth it.

With more meets under the cars belt and having been in other cars I made the decision that suspension was next on the wish list. Again JamesStone was a great help as he had been in cars with Eibach springs, owned Aphex springs and ran FK collies. I was able to grasp the pros and cons of the options and decided to tread the collie path at a later date instead of going half way with springs and sacrificing the fine balance between comfort and performance.

The next stage was a bit unexpected but circumstances arouse and I had the chance too obtain all my long term plans for the car in a single swoop!

These came in the form of AST coil-overs, Original Trophy Turinis and brembo max discs, all were in absolute mint condition so represented a real bargain second hand. The replacement parts could not have been better timed as two of my standard shocks were leaking anyway and would require attention shortly regardless & my standard discs were nearly done for.

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Mr Stone and I fitted the coillies in a couple of hours one evening and left the setup as they came. It sat VERY low, the tops of tyres were hidden and some, so had the inevitable problems of light scrubbing and a very bouncy ride as the shock stroke was so short, but even with this initial setup I found the change in handling astonishing. I left it like this for a couple of days biding my time until an afternoon free showed itself and then set about winding the height up and tinkering with the once piece damping/rebound adjustment. After adjusting the rears disaster struck one of the front shocks when the threaded ring split after possibly being molested in a previous life!

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This grounded the car until the next day as the shock was unfit to bear weight, so a 5 hour journey to powerstation and a shock rebuild in the kitchen later and we were back in business.

I am lucky to have a little experience with suspension settings from DH mtb racing where a well setup shock can make a winning time. The ASTs with their one piece front and rear coils & easily adjusted damping are basically identical to mtb shocks, just scaled up. So the processes of adjusting the settings and what to look for response wise were very easy to carry out.

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This combined with James knowledge of coilover adjustment and a bit of testing on a range of road surfaces and corner types has left me with a good stance, excellent comfort day to day and plenty of shock stroke and rebound to deal with the rougher roads/corners, preventing the sideways movement of a car on over-stiff suspension as the tyre looses contact with the ground. On top of all of this I can get over speed bumps!

So until last week thats about it, the story of my RS clio ownership so far!

Here he is as he currently stands, I’d like to think (nearly) the finished article:

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The plan now takes two routes, the first is driver training and track days, these being something that I have always wanted to get into. With the car as it is now it is extremely forgiving and should be able to handle anything I can throw at it so will be a great training tool with the proper instruction.

The second is JMS tuning which has now become a reality as a partnership between JamesStone and I, brains and beauty as they say :D

Take a look here for more info JMS TUNING

Thanks for taking the time to have a little read :approve:

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Last edited:
  Mk4 .:R32
Re: My 182, six months of ownership in words and pics

Good write up, Car looks mint!

Awesome choice of mods too.
 
  Turbo LY R27
Re: My 182, six months of ownership in words and pics

Very nice mate, one of the nicest 182's on the site imo!
 

Coby.

ClioSport Club Member
  XC60-R.......V40-R
Re: My 182, six months of ownership in words and pics

Cracking Stuff..... What should we be expecting from JMS-Tuning??
 
  182trophy & Williams
Re: My 182, six months of ownership in words and pics

well written chap, flawless BG you have there.
 
  corsa ecoflex
Re: My 182, six months of ownership in words and pics

loving the car tom...just need to start on mine now that the warmer weather is here...see you at the staines meet next week dude
 
  RB 182 FF
Re: My 182, six months of ownership in words and pics

Lovely car and a great write up. Well done.
 
  TTRS & V50
Re: My 182, six months of ownership in words and pics

Great write up, loved it, and love the car.

But you said your work is a walking distance away...how the hell have you knocked up 17k in 6 months !!!! That's a hell of a lot of driving in you own personel car.
 

Jon.L

ClioSport Club Member
  911 GT3 & Audi Q8
Re: My 182, six months of ownership in words and pics

perfect
 
Re: My 182, six months of ownership in words and pics

Great write up, loved it, and love the car.

But you said your work is a walking distance away...how the hell have you knocked up 17k in 6 months !!!! That's a hell of a lot of driving in you own personel car.

Thanks for all the comments fellas! nice to know peoples opinions. Mileage is a tough one, just seem to drive a lot, especially when I first had it ;), coupled with 20 mile commute every day I guess it soon adds up!
 
  Tangoed Works
Re: My 182, six months of ownership in words and pics

i love the write up dude. pretty much sums up how i felt about my BG 182 when i got it all those years ago! your car looks perfecto!
 

maynard

ClioSport Club Member
  ph2 172 track car
Re: My 182, six months of ownership in words and pics

really nice car and cool upgrades too...recaros are sweet!
 
  arctic 182 ff
Re: My 182, six months of ownership in words and pics

brilliant write up lovely looking car good work !!!!!!
 
  LY V6 with Recaros
Re: My 182, six months of ownership in words and pics

Nice little read, and a very nice car you have :)
 
  Trophy #490
Re: My 182, six months of ownership in words and pics

Great thread this, really enjoyed reading it! The car is looking brilliant aswell, can't beat a clean Black Gold really! :cool:
 
Re: My 182, six months of ownership in words and pics

^^ Thanks fella & for all the other comments, pleased you enjoyed reading it :)
 
  Clio 1.4 16v Dymanique
Re: My 182, six months of ownership in words and pics

What wheels are those? i wouldnt mind putting a set of those on my black 1.4 dymanique...

What finish is that aswell? I think the silver would look go with the black paintwork but i know alot of people say black wheels...

Very good thread tho.. and a very nice car! :)
 
Re: My 182, six months of ownership in words and pics

wheels are standard Clio 182 Trophy Turinis in the factory finish paint colour, not changing them as I love them ;)
 
Re: My 182, six months of ownership in words and pics

I've had a suprising number of PMs about my seats, please see the following thread for more info: LINK
 

Sir_Dave

ClioSport Trader
Re: My 182, six months of ownership in words and pics

a fellow member, now an ex-clio owner but a legend non the less made it know to me that you can pick up Recaros much cheaper in other forums

Never been called a legend before :eek:

Cars looking great Tom, you'll have to take me for a little spin on Thurs, would love to see what the AST's feel like from a ride perspective .... as they do them for e36 M3 ...
 
Re: My 182, six months of ownership in words and pics

Thanks Dave, you'll always be a legend to me:eek:

Yeah see you at the meet fella, I'll give you a ride out in one of the JMS Tuning project cars lol
 
Re: My 182, six months of ownership in words and pics

** Cheeky update **

Still munching through the miles over here, the car hit 58k at the weekend, so that's 20k in 7 months! If there ever has been an example of a 1*2 handling high millage mine is it! The little beauty has not put a foot wrong in that time and feels like it pulls harder every day I drive it!

Car had another oil change and a general check over at the weekend, James also replaced the gearbox oil & the lower engine mount with a powerflex and the box is feeling slippery smooth :)

Been attending meets left right and center, met up with the local Turini fan club in Windsor a couple of weeks ago for a beer and a photoshoot:

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Biggest change for the car has been the fitting of some new seats, massive improvement over the Recaros, I had been told by people on here when I fitted the Evo seats that better options for support and driving position could be had, and now I understand why they said it!

This made me chuckle:

With a bit of tinkering I got them in the car and was over the moon with the results, they made a massive difference to the feel of the car whilst retaining the element of practicality I would have lost with fixed buckets.

Guess my opinions changed then!




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Its been great meeting loads of other owners with the company too, quite tempted with an RS192 scorpion exhaust atm, especially after hearing one after we fitted a decat the other night mmmmmm.

As always thanks for looking :)
 
  Civic Type S GT
Re: My 182, six months of ownership in words and pics

Stunning 182 mate, great example of some good styling and mods!!! Got to ask tho, where did you get your seats? I'm in same boat,trying to get new seats but want a good price.
 

Ali

  V6, Trackhawk, GTS
Re: My 182, six months of ownership in words and pics

Thats a nice looking car. I lol at 35k just run in!... 1k is just run in! ;)
 


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